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Friday, September 28, 2007

Oliver Kamm and A Case of Criminal Harassment

Long-standing readers of this blog will know all about the extremely vindictive campaign waged against me by the neo-conservative hedge-fund trader cum-blogger Oliver Kamm, which started when my critical review of Kamm's book appeared in the Daily Telegraph in December 2005. Ever since then, Kamm, his neo-con pal Stephen Pollard and their mysterious pseudonymous associates have done all they could to smear me, with emails, repeating Kamm's libellous allegations, being sent to editors who commission my work. Further details of this campaign can be found here. The campaign has been carried out on several fronts; including on the pages of wikipedia. My page was consistently maliciously edited by a mysterious personage called "Elena Zamm" (including on the evening of 25th December) A little research showed that Ms Zamm edited just two other wikipedia pages (but this time favourably) that of Oliver Kamm and a certain 'Anthea Bell'. Who's Anthea Bell, I hear you ask? Why, she's Oliver Kamm's mother.

In the end the malicious editors, unable to get the lies printed that they wanted, lobbied for my wikipedia page to be deleted. Now, the favoured technique is for untrue and libellous comments about me to be posted on any websites my work appears on, or indeed on any site I leave comments on myself.

Comments such as the ones below have been posted repeatedly on the Guardian's Comment is Free website beneath my articles. As you will see, the format is always the same: the comments are pseudonymous and always provide a link to one of two websites: Oliver Kamm and Stephen Pollard.

GreenCityGoddess
Comment No. 835587
September 27 12:12
GBR
Do you have anything to say about your exposure for fraud on Wikipedia? Clark posted comments praising himself under girlie pseudonyms (GreenGoddess and CityLightsGirl) on Wikipedia and Stephen Pollard's blog. He lied both times by denying he was Neil Clark.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/stephenpollard/89011/neil-clark-hypocrite.thtml

It's good of CiF to give Clark space though, even unpaid. Other papers don't publish him after his expousre for misrepresenting sources. He told the Telegraph his pro-milosevic boilerplate came from the IISS. It actually came from a group of Srebrenica deniers!
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2007/08/a-humanitarian-.html
[Offensive? Unsuitable? Report this comment.]
GreenCityGoddess
Comment No. 835587

And here's one from the website of the Green Party spokesperson Derek Wall, posted today. Derek had written to me about setting up an Erich Fromm Party/Society:

Derek, even if you like what he says, be aware that Neil Clark has been exposed for posting booster comments about himself across the web under false names and then lying when he's been caught. It's really funny that now he calls for people to post under their real name!

Neil posted under the name GreenGoddess on Stephen Pollard's blog, always praising himself. He also posted under the name CityLightsGirl on Wikipedia so as to delete any criticisms of himself. Both times he was accused of being Neil Clark and he lied in reply. (He didn't know that IP addresses could show he was lying.) He was banned from Wikipedia and had his entry deleted. Here he is being panned by a Wikipedia administrator for his fraud.

He writes unpaid for Comment is Free because most other places won't publish him. You need to be careful of him too.


Having given the matter much thought, I have this week, passed on all the evidence to the legal department of my union, the NUJ, who have very kindly offered to assist me in this matter. If you read all the material (and follow the relevant links on my blog), then I'm sure you will agree that what I have been subject to only be described as criminal harassment. The perpetrators of this activity have a clear aim: to discredit me in the eyes of those who employ me and prevent me from earning my living as a journalist. They are also perhaps hoping that in the light of their constant, malicious attacks, I will decide that in order to have a 'quiet life', I will quit journalism. They could not be more wrong. Unlike them, my conscience is clear. The malicious attacks have only energised me and motivated me to work even harder to expose the lies and deceit which underpin the neo-con war machine.

Anyway, things are now, at last, coming to a head. Let me make this pledge now: I will not rest until those responsible for such cowardly, underhand, and deceitful attacks are bought to justice.



UPDATE: You really couldn't make this up. 'anonymous' has returned to Derek Wall's site with the following classic:

Glad to hear of all the paying work, Neil. Does that exist outside your imagination?
And in an attempt to prove his case, 'anonymous' links to guess who? Yes, Oliver Kamm!!! (Kamm's words of wisdom are below)

"In the past 18 months he has, so far as I can see, written two articles for The Telegraph - about, respectively, the Edwardian comic writer Saki, and horseracing - and a 200-word contribution for The Times about the World Pipe-Smoking Championships in Poland. I have no doubt that he is competent to write on two of those three non-political subjects. His contributions to The Guardian have been more numerous, and commendably haven't included the relevant factoid. Indeed, the only time I've since commented on Mr Clark's writing has been a quizzical note about The Guardian's publishing, with predictably infelicitous results, a comment on French politics from someone who literally can't read a French newspaper."


The 'infelicitous' (coo, wot a big word Oliver!)result of the article in question was the rejection, by the Guardian's readers editor, of a spurious letter of complaint by a reader who wanted the paper to print a retraction for my claim that the gung ho French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner had supported the Iraq war. I don't think I need to tell you who the letter of complaint was from....

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

seems to be lots of pages edited by zamm neil,you sure?

Ken said...

Neil,

This shit is happening on my site as well! I linked to one of your posts a few days ago and someone came along leaving what I thought was nonsense in the comment box. It had happened about a month earlier as well.

I think that the person lives in Thurrock, just outside London.

Matt Kennard said...

Good for you Neil... Someone wrote recently that reading Oliver Kamm's blog is like watching a car crash: you can't but look because you can't believe such an arsehole actually exists, with his vacuous posts where he uses big word like 'nugatory' and others to show everyone he is smart... He is not intelligent at all, he got shamed with his cackhanded help with Nick Cohen over the Balkans (I know people that literally laughed at how uninformed that book was about the topic)... He is a bombastic prick who writes utter tosh, repeating the same unexciting bulllshit every week... Him and Stephen Pollard will complete their Melanie Phillips style rants and get well for it.... I don't support you on everything, but I always respect people who take on pricks, and Kamm is an utter scumbag, a stupid one at that... What is he famous for? Some weird misquotations of Chomsky that ingratiated him with Horowitz and substandard pieces about freedom of speech and how Muslims are damaging it, he's completely bluster, good on you.... a

Organized Rage. said...

Neil

I wish you well, if Mr Kamm and his associates disagree with what you write they have the means to put an alternative opinion, that some of them have resorted to posting tittle tattle on the web is contemptible.

That you have been able to turn to your Trade Union in your hour of need is a lesson to all who denigrate these great institutions.

http://organizedrage.blogspot.com/

Neil Clark said...

thanks for the support.
matt: yes, i have found it hard to believe that someone so malicious, obsessed and arseholish as Kamm can actually exist, but I'm afraid it's the reality.
mick: if I had to give just three words of advice to anyone it would be 'join a union'.

Anonymous said...

Neil, good on you!!!

What a desperate situation this little group of troublemakers are in. Must be a slow day in hell so they're thinking how to fill their time. They don't say that the devil makes work for idle fingers for nothing! Maybe if they were gainfully employed they would not need to stoop so low!

Good luck, the truth is on your side!

Anonymous said...

Neil;
The character assassination camping has been going on for some time on CIF, but the attacks against you seem to concentrate on disseminating scandalous claims, ordinary readers can't verify.

And yes, they are targeting your career; I read a comment on Harry blog about payment being stopped for your Iraqi translators article, meaning, it was in their mind when they launched the name calling campaign on you.

Please be as storng and resulute as we know you.
You are an excellent Journalist and a precious asset to the left.

Anonymous said...

Neil, never fear, my friend, never fear and never surrender!

The pack of hyenas from the blogosphere sewer is no more than another incarnation of the ancient scum already defeated ages ago.

You are not alone, brother, the armies of the just and righteous are behind you. Remember that whosoever stood up for truth and justice has come face to face with the same contorted, hateful face and has gone through the same shameful Trial by lies and slanders and slurs, but have never been defeated.

P.S. Wikipedia has been losing credibility day by day, thanks to the Kamm Scum.

Charlie Marks said...

Don't get me started on Kamm...

He was on that newsnight special on iraq last week. Smarmy little bastard.

Njegos said...

You have to understand Kamm's point of view. Intellectually he is dead in the water having nailed himself to the mast of HMS Neo-conservatism. Everyday he is forced to deflect reminders of his monumental stupidity. It's exhausting work which probably leaves him in a permanently vicious mood.

His recent petulant defense of Blair's reputation on Newsnight was, like his prose, totally Kamm-fisted (I think it would be easier to split the atom with a meat cleaver). Then again, he could be teetering on the brink of insanity. Or no longer able to conceal it?

I look forwarded to you skinning this viper Neil.

Anonymous said...

I thought of posting a comment but then realised that, unless I agreed with absolutely everything you say and write, it would be pointless. The fact that you only have comments up that agree with you says rather a lot about your comment policy.

Neil Clark said...

Many thanks again for all the support. It's very much appreciated.

recusant: Sorry to disappoint you, but I have published every single comment I have received in realtion to this post.
"The fact that you only have comments up that agree with you says rather a lot about your comment policy". That's tommy rot, as any regular reader of this blog will testify.

ps if you feel upset about this blog's comment policy, then try posting a comment (of any sort) on the blog of that wonderful supporter of free speech and open debate, Oliver Kamm, and see how you get on.

Anonymous said...

can't post a comment on Kamm's blog. He only likes the sound of his own voice. What a strange observation racusant. The fact Neil posted your comment surely proves you wrong.

Njegos said...

Re Koucher, Kamm claims the former was against the war in Iraq based on a single comment made at a speech in Chicago just before the invasion. Apparently he said, "I am neither for war nor for Saddam Hussein's regime" or words to that effect. However, I do not recall Kouchner making a single antiwar speech once invasion once the war began, rather strange behaviour for someone who was supposedly against the war.

In other words, Kouchner was striking a pose and had no real moral objection to an invasion.

David Lindsay said...

The drumming out of this vile pair is long overdue. Will they starve to death? Well, let them.

But they could probably still find employment in America or Israel, to one or other of which, if they love them quite so much, they and the whole of the War Party should move anyway, so that those of us who want to be British can get on with being British.

I repeat, the whole of the War Party, beginning with all of their Henry Jackson Society and Euston Manifesto accomplices. Why do they want to live here, anyway? Why don't they just move to America or Israel?

Boycotts of newspapers or magazines that print their effusions, and of products and companies that advertise in such publications (someone out there must have the time to maintain the necessary website), would be a good start in helping them to get the message.

Anonymous said...

Sorry to disappoint you, but I have published every single comment I have received in realtion to this post.

Well, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this claim was true at 5.05pm yesterday evening. But you know as well as I do that it isn't true any more.

(Ironically, the post Neil censored was far from complimentary about Kamm and Pollard either...)

Neil Clark said...

nvzau: The statement certainly was true at 5.05 yesterday. Your post (under the name jhrdo) was fine up to the last couple of sentences which raised a few legal issues. Absolutely no problem with the early parts of your post. I was going to post an edited version of it,if that's ok by you.